The government's bargaining policy simply aims for less complex enterprise agreements that do not repeat rights and conditions and responsibilities already provided for in legislation or elsewhere.

Entitlements conferred by laws, such as the Fair Work Act or workplace health and safety legislation, apply to employees regardless of whether they are repeated in an enterprise agreement.

The CPSU claims that the government wants to cut public servants' superannuation, when the government's contribution rate is set by the trust deed – a legislative instrument subject to scrutiny by the Parliament.

Duplicative content, recently inserted into enterprise agreements, purporting to set a certain superannuation contribution rate cannot legally constrain the rate contained in public service superannuation law.

Yet the CPSU continues to misrepresent the reality and ignore the government's stated position that the rate will not change.

This is just scaremongering by the CPSU and – what's more – public servants know it.

Despite two days of CPSU hysteria, and The Canberra Times erroneously reporting that: "several major departments are moving to scrap their workers' legally binding entitlement to the Australian Public Service's generous 15.4 per cent employer superannuation contribution" and that "Public servants' super could be slashed by more than 30 per cent", there was not one telephone call either to my or Finance Minister Mathias Cormann's offices from any outraged public servant.

So what we have is a situation where the CPSU has duplicated existing legal rights and conditions in enterprise agreements – to no advantage, in order to justify its relevance, and is now pretending it's preserving rights and conditions already protected elsewhere.

In July, the Department of Human Services released a potential pay offer to all staff that was partly contingent on a new agreement being in place by September 1, 2014.

About $62 million earmarked for salary advancement could have been redistributed as a general pay increase for all 34,000 DHS staff, increasing the pay offer to them by 0.35 per cent – to 3.55 per cent over three years.

But the CPSU chose to grandstand, saying it required extra time for bargaining and consultation on the draft agreement. As a result, all DHS employees missed out on sharing in this $62 million.

The CPSU should cease scaremongering and posturing and instead help its members negotiate what small productivity backed increases are possible given the mess left by the former Labor government.

It should abandon its unaffordable 4 per cent per annum, or 12 per cent, pay claim, which will cost at least 10,000 jobs, which will be most severe in cash-strapped agencies such as the Australian Crime Commission, which is having difficulty offering any increases without cutting jobs.

The CPSU should also remind its members that over the past decade, median public service wage rises outstripped CPI increases by 14 per cent.

In short, it should stop standing between its members and sustainable wage increases, and between its members and their jobs – just to justify its own existence.

Senator Eric Abetz is the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service.

75 comments so far

What WAS your phone number again, Eric?

Commenter

PMFT

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 1:12PM

PMFT why do you need that? Stifle the truth and debate?Nothing like a fear driven agenda to push your own political barrow eh

Commenter

some threats

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 3:22PM

@some threats : Stifle debate? Cant you read from actual employees below? Abetz made it all up with some half baked advice supplied to him. There's no fear here, just black and white printing on a proposed DHS agreement. You obviously have NO idea what you're talking about. Ask people who actually know what's going on.

Commenter

Actually

Location

Sydney

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 6:53PM

And of course I can believe everything you say can't I?

Commenter

wally

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 1:18PM

'Yet the CPSU continues to misrepresent the reality and ignore the government's stated position that the rate will not change.'

What a joke that comment is ? The Abbott government has a stated position on many things, that is how they got elected.

Commenter

adam

Location

yarrawonga

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 4:45PM

Yes Eric. The outright lies we have been badgered with from our departmental bargaining rep are more than enough for us. We don't need idiots like you joining in.Spammed to death by the department .

Pay offers of O% and a reduction in lawful entitlements are Abetz's and this governments stance. The delays in getting deserved pay rises (which are lawful) has saved the government billions.

How do you know you departments rep and the pollie is lying? Yes, they open their mouths and speak.

Commenter

Hairy

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 9:20PM

The move to streamline Enterprise agreements is actualy a reversal of the Howard-era policy of making Enterprise Agreements "comprehensive". ie: A full articulation of the employer-employee relationship so that people wouldn't have to look at a library of legistlation and policy documents to know their right.Why reverse this? Does the government want to make it harder for employees to know when their entitlements have been violated? I suspect not. I suspect the real motivation is to facilitate easier government cost-cuttings in the future. Once an entitlement is gone from the Agreement, reducing the entitlement in law will immediately reduce the entitlement in practice. If duplicated in the Agreement as well, the entitlement at least survives until the next round of bargaining, providing certainty and stability in relationship expectations.

If Abetz is hell-bent on this streamlining stuff, we have to assume it is because he plans to change his mind on "having no plans to change superannuation" or other entitlements in the future. No other motivation makes sense.If he really wanted to make the assurance that his Government had no plans to amend these conditions, he would let them be protected and identifiable in the Agreement and we'd all move on.This is a matter of trust, and too many people have learned not to trust politicians. No other assurance will be deemed satisfactory to the Commonwealth Public Servants.

Commenter

TimTim

Location

Canberra

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 1:21PM

Well said TimTim!

Commenter

Jake

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 4:57PM

Saying that something is duplicated and therefore being streamlined, but where is the actual harm if a condition is included in both legislation and an Enterprise Agreement? It's not as though it's "red tape" and creates extra work - its just ink printed on paper.

You think that if it kept the CPSU happy and made the negotiations run more smoothly then the Government would just duplicate the conditions and get over it. So, if the Government isn't prepared to budge on this, the question is: why??

Commenter

AS

Location

Geneva

Date and time

September 05, 2014, 7:50PM

The obvious advantage of duplicating legislation in agreements is simple: it establishes a minimum condition for the life of the agreement, regardless of whether teh legislation that it 'duplicates' is changed. I regard the areas that teh government wants to eliminate 'duplication' in agreements as a wish list of laws to reduce in teh future, and listing teh same arrangements in agreements is a safety net against having consitions stolen by an ingenuous government.